I would like to see a step away from this 'live loop' idea, which is anything BUT, IMO.

For me, the whole idea of arrangers is their spontaneity, their ability to say take a rock kit pattern, and play it on brushes (sometimes it works!), or an electric guitar pattern on classical guitar. You can't do this to a loop. The feature 'Cover Tools' on the Roland's, where you can take any style, and give it a wide selection of alternative sounds can stretch enormous variety out of just a few patterns. Loops, sorry. WYSIWYG...

WS's and TOTL arrangers are starting to get ROM sample sizes up close to the point where VERY detailed sampled instruments can be used. Go to the websites of things like EZ Drummer, BFD, etc., and you will hear demos AT LEAST as realistic as the Audya's. But they have NONE of the drawbacks. Listen to the Guitar Modes of Korg (and to a lesser extent, Roland) and especially Yamaha's Mega Voice patterns. Imagine them with simply a much larger sample size to get greater dynamics and inflexion from them, and once again you have something that sounds as good as the live loops, but with NONE of the drawbacks.

Live audio loops is a dead end that is going to draw us all down into uniformity, because once you get them, there is NOTHING you can do to change them. So we all end up sounding identical. Personally, this is the last thing I want!

I would also like to see a move more towards integrating styles, SMF's and chord tracks, so the whole thing is interchangeable. Want to play the verse with a style, do the solo with an SMF, play a vamp back in style mode then have it repeat while you jam? Most arrangers make this (if even possible in the first place) much harder than it needs to be.

The arranger should never get in the way of what YOU want to do. All too many off them say 'this way only' or put up considerable roadblock to making these kinds of moves on the fly, at your whim. Too many of them seem designed by guys with pocket protectors, rather than by arranger PLAYERS.